The world is mad. Most Britons have, like me, just enjoyed the most glorious weather of the year. The western shores of the British Isles have seen a week of almost continuous sun, open horizons and star-filled nights. Freezing air has kept the early snow from melting. With brief exceptions, main roads have been open and supplies plentiful. An exquisite Christmas beckons, with snowy slopes and blues skies, a photographic negative from the usual greens and greys.

So what is the Britain we have read about in the papers and watched on the news, one of relentless, total misery? It must be one that is enmeshed in London and can't stay still. It is a metropolis of the damned, hyper-mobile, frantically trying to get into or away from itself, stranded in motorways and on railway platforms, entombed in detention centres that claim to be airports. The inhabitants all incant, "I was only trying to get away for Christmas", to a chorus of "When is the government going to do something?" An aviation company was even quoted as claiming it was Whitehall's job to keep it supplied with de-icing equipment.

Absurd though it may seem, Downing Street on Tuesday accepted the charge, explaining that its response was as serious as that of the Cobra emergency planning committee. Not to be outdone, the security lobby made its annual Christmas appeal, seeking to wipe out what remains of the retail sector with "warnings of terrorist attacks this Christmas". Even the Department of Health joined in the hysterics with news of the return of its perennial Black Death – swine flu.

The Heathrow airport boss, Colin Matthews, even said he would "give up [his] bonus" because of the snow. Most travellers could not care less about his bonus: they want a plane. As for the bonus, the truth is out. It is apparently no longer a reward for exceptional achievement. It is standard remuneration on top of salary, at risk only if it snows and is considered a risk to public relations.

Last year's transport secretary, Lord Adonis, gave a lesson in cynicism by complaining, now he's out of power, that this year's chaos is "making Britain look like a third world country". No it is not. It is making Britain look like a country that has just been hit by an exceptionally fierce blizzard, one that is bound to throw everything out of kilter unless you are Inuit. As for pretending it is the government's fault, are we to congratulate ministers when the sun shines?

Seen from the more restful provinces, the one-third of car owners who, according to surveys, "expect to be on the move" during the holiday is wholly unreasonable in its expectations. To equip Britain's transport system to handle an occasional bout of snow would be absurd, though it is an absurdity the transport secretary is contemplating.

Philip Hammond has been browbeaten by sufferers from acute seasonal mobility disorder, and by their media cheerleaders. It would be gratifying if, just once, a transport secretary had the nerve to stand up and tell everyone that when the weather is bad it is a good idea to leave their cars in the garage, tear up their rail passes, forget Marbella and tuck up at home with a good book. They should see their loved ones some other time. Normality cannot be guaranteed.

Every journalist knows that the only good news is bad news, especially when it is about Vince Cable or Strictly Come Dancing, or both. This Christmas the maxim has gone too far. It presents a false picture of ordinary people. From my perusal of the weather records, most people are experiencing a delightful break, chiefly by not attempting to move. To those of us on the western shores, the chief risk just now is of sunburn.